Speed TV is giving us US gerbils the first-ever live broadcast of the Bathurst 1000, an Aussie V8 Supercar race, at 7:30PM EDT tonight. The cars aren't the pull here, it's the track. It's the Aussie Nordschleife & Monaco rolled into one. The vertical gradients are just crazy and it's a pinball track just like Monaco (it's also a public road when not being raced on). I know what I'm watching at 7:30.

This is probably one of the more interesting races out there, next to formula 1 in my opinion. Those Australian V8 supercars are pretty zippy.Especially considering the cars used are Ford and GM Subsidary, Holden's saloons. The Ford falcon and Holden Commodore. Quite honestly I'd love to have either one of them

This is probably one of the more interesting races out there, next to formula 1 in my opinion. Those Australian V8 supercars are pretty zippy.Especially considering the cars used are Ford and GM Subsidary, Holden's saloons. The Ford falcon and Holden Commodore. Quite honestly I'd love to have either one of them

I've got a Falcon XR8 ute (there's a photo in one of the sections around here) lots of fun to drive There's also a racing series that's purely for utes. Its a based more on the production vehicles than supercars as they use production engines.

Bathurst is a great weekend to allow the inner petrolhead in all of us out, although I spent a lot of this arvo switching between Bathurst and the Rugby World Cup Quarter Final between us and South Africa.

To paraphrase Roy and HG "it was an afternoon where too much sport wasn't enough"

Should any of you OTHER "PC gearheads" wish to drive PC simulations of these very same Aussie V8 Supercars, they ARE available at no cost (and an accurate version of the Bathurst track too)...in at least one sim/program called "rFactor." At least one of the mods has been produced by a group known as OSRM. I believe there is at least one other competing group too offering another interpretation of the V8 Supercars (I can't compare the two, as I've only driven the OSRM version myself).

I just drove a 20 lap online league race here earlier tonight, in fact, in a similar, but completely different and somewhat lower-powered Corvette C4 mod--but despite that lower power it was still just huge, huge fun.

rFactor itself will [we hope!] soon--just in time for the holiday buying season--be supplanted by the newer "rFactor2"...which will first probably offer a free online demo (demo testing typically lasting a couple weeks or more)...and hopefully ending with a release-to-retail of a final version sometime shortly before X-mas.

See: "VirtualR.com: and click the menu bar, top right on "rFactor 2" for more details.

And one last followup point: You WILL want to be using some sort of wheel and pedals for this one (at a minimum) if you want to compete with the best (on PC's). Not just a simple gamepad or keyboard. So you'll want to invest in something like a Logitech G27, which would give you at least some reasonable driving tools with which to get started.

Expect to spend at least $200 US more to buy truly competive pedals (something that goes beyond the G27/ aka "FANATEC Clubsports" or parts for other, similar aftermarket pedal modifications down the road)...but this is not neccessary either at the beginning unless you intend to vault straight to the very front rank and battle the very best on even terms. IMO to do so, you WILL need to have access to the same sort of cutting edge driving tools they have (and which I have myself). Don't expect to be able to compete with the best of us without using at least very good--and reasonably equal--driving tools.

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Overall? This "sport" is not something aimed at extremely "light" wallets, really. But it's also not prohibitively expensive either, IMO.

The SINGLE biggest investment you will have to make will be with your TIME* and not your money. It will take a lot of your time to claw your way up front and stay up front. And there are no shortcuts.

[* Or...to quote Mario Andretti in "Drive To Win" (speaking here of the REAL sport of racing): "If you plan to do this (to be a race driver (or even a sim-racing driver))..."then plan also to take very short vacations...."]